Pakistan has no security treaty with any major power: Agha Shahi

The most sought after foreign minister at the non-aligned bazar in New Delhi was the Madras-born, Kerala-educated ex-ICS Agha Shahi, of Pakistan. He kept himself at the centre of the meandering debates and controversies that occupied 90-odd foreign ministers for five days. This was recognition of the strategic position Pakistan holds not only in regional relations in South Asia, but also in the forum of Islamic nations. No country has been able to turn the Afghan and Iranian crises to better advantage for itself than Pakistan. But Pakistan is still in quest of its identity in the comity of nations, hovering between non-alignment, "Islamic ethos'', and close connections with China and the United States.

Pakistan holds the key to a settlement of the Afghan crisis, while its role in the volatile affairs of Islamic nations assumes increasing importance. And yet Pakistan suffers from an acute persecution complex, and is obsessed with insecurities, domestic and external. This makes Pakistan an easy target of great power rivalries.

India Today asked scholar Bhabani Sen Gupta to seek an exclusive inverview with Agha Shahi. Sen Gupta spent 40 minutes with the brilliantly articulate and astute foreign minister of Pakistan last week. His report:

Pakistan wants the South Asian region to stay out of the superpowers' assertive competition and emerge as a "viable independent political factor" in the arena of world politics. Pakistan wants the countries of South Asia to build a regional edifice of "political cooperation," to "manage their own conflicts and devise mechanisms to settle their own differences through peaceful means," and to act together to defuse, if not prevent, a superpower confrontation leading to a conflict of unforeseeable calamity for the human race. Pakistan wants the states of South Asia to live peacefully with one another.

As Pakistan's affable Foreign Minister, Agha Shahi, outlined Pakistan's regional perspective in an exclusive interview last fortnight, it seemed for a moment that the congenital strategic divide between the two distant neighbours was about to be bridged. But no. For as Agha Shahi proceeded to outline his strategic regional thinking, the still sharp differences between Pakistan and India came into bold relief.

The region, Agha Shahi observed, has its deep-rooted differences as well as strong historical affinities. It is also profoundly influenced by what happens between the superpowers. In the '80s, the superpowers have engaged in mutually assertive competition and rivalry, triggered to a large extent by their parity of strategic power. He believed, however, that the superpowers were, or would be, moving towards "some kind of accommodation" in the South Asian region.

Regional Cooperation:This perception of the Pakistan foreign minister seemed to have sharpened his strategic thinking about problems and possibilities of regional cooperation. A great power confrontation in the region is pregnant with dangers for each country in the area-a point that India has been making since the beginning of the Afghan crisis.